 |
|
|
|
|
| Can't find Razorcake at your favorite store? Lend us a hand and we'll send you a free issue. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 | Razorcake will send you one free issue if you ask your librarian if they would carry Razorcake in their stacks. (This offer is good for both traditional libraries and independent libraries.) To get the free issue, you must send us the librarian's name and email and the library's postal address. We will then contact them directly and donate a subscription to them. U.S. libraries only, due to postage. | |
|
|
|
|
|
| | 
Record Reviews1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | 0-9| A| B| C| D| E| F| G| H| I| J| K| L| M | | N| O| P| Q| R| S| T| U| V| W| X| Y| Z| < Prev Section | Next Section >  RSS Feed
OSCARS, THE:
Blow Yourself Up: CDEP
The Oscars remind me of the Spits, minus the keyboards, and in the waaay, waaay back of the room, an odd, early Sonic Youth guitar. Fungus retard punk rock that takes the duct tape off the Ramones' shoes and uses it as a plug for the holes in their blowup dolls. The Oscars are so patently bad for so many reasons, it has to be intentional, and they're actually pretty fuckin' good. Almost no-fi, but worth keeping an ear out for.
–Todd Taylor (oscars666@hotmail)
| |
|
OSCARS, THE:
Techno Primitivo: CD
I can’t figure out these guys, but I suspect that they may still be engaged in the same process. There are a lot of different sounds on this one. Some of it sounds like early Invisible Men records—very raw, very sloppy, and very fun, like wreck your parents’ rec room with a barrel of beer and thirty of your closest friends. Other songs have a bit more refinement to them (if such a word can be appropriately applied), and then there are tunes that seems to be pointless experimentation with a keyboard and a tambourine. There’s too much ridiculous crap on this. If this were cut down to the ten or eleven best tunes, it would achieve a consistent level of fun, trashy rock’n’roll, but right now the skip button gets used too much.
–The Lord Kveldulfr (Bootleg)
| |
|
OSCARS, THE:
American Idol: CD
Low-res cover art worried me, but sure enough this is the same band that released a rad Memphis homegrown 5-song EP on Contaminated Records. This one is on Bootleg Records and just as basement-created. Recorded at Tronic Graveyard by Jay and Alicja and, sure enough, sounds like a descendent of the Reatards/Oblivians/etc, with some creepy inbreeding resulting in noise and moderate speed. Then I finally recognized it: these are all those weird songs on Thrasher’s skate rock comps I could never find the whole albums for. Not really, just a metaphor.
–Speedway Randy (Bootleg, www.oscarsindustries.com)
| |
|
OSCARS, THE:
Blow Yourself Up: CDEP
The Oscars remind me of the Spits, minus the keyboards, and in the waaay, waaay back of the room, an odd, early Sonic Youth guitar. Fungus retard punk rock that takes the duct tape off the Ramones’ shoes and uses it as a plug for the holes in their blowup dolls. The Oscars are so patently bad for so many reasons, it has to be intentional, and they’re actually pretty fuckin’ good. Almost no-fi, but worth keeping an ear out for.
–Todd Taylor (oscars666@hotmail)
| |
|
OSCARS, THE / EVIL WIZARD EYES:
Split: 7”
The Oscars and Evil Wizard Eyes are two very Memphis garage punk bands. The Oscars remind me of The Spits, primarily due to the vocals. Evil Wizard Eyes is on the harder edge of the Memphis scene, with occasionally screamed vocals. Both bands play wild, lo-fi, sloppy garage punk that sounds less contrived than it is. The handmade glued cover artwork kicks ass.
–Art Ettinger (Soul Is Cheap)
| |
|
OSCEOLA / SUIS LA LUNE:
Split: 7"
If you missed these two bands on tour together, here is the next best thing. According to Osceola’s myspace page, the vocalist has left and there isn’t any further news as to the future of the screamo thrash band. Stay tuned. Sweden’s Suis La Luna follows up with, “Friends,” a hardcore garage track that manages to float into a gentle melody before soaring into a frothy wave of guitar effects. Good stuff in the same vein as The Sound Of Animals Fighting and Phoenix And The Turtle.
–Kristen K (Protagonist Music)
| |
|
OSCURO:
Self-titled: CD
Moody, atmospheric instrumental
music that would no doubt compliment your average indie film quite nicely.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Pascal)
| |
|
OSK:
Wretched Existence/Bleak Future 2007-2010: CD
My appreciation for the lion’s share of grindcore withered away relatively quickly, mainly due to the fact that so much of it was so poorly recorded and comprised of limited variations on the same template, resulting in entire slabs of wax with thirty-five tracks of the same cats playing as fast as possible while some other cat yowls in exactly the same fashion track after track. Very small doses and I’m down with it; any longer, it all becomes a faceless blur, and I want a bit more from any extended listening experience. Though much of what’s here falls well within the borders of “boogadaboogadaROOOAAARRRR” land, they have enough sense to change things up frequently enough so that individual songs and ideas can be discerned. The fact that it’s recorded cleanly enough to make out what the fuck’s going on just pushes it over into the “worth a listen” territory.
–Jimmy Alvarado (To Live A Lie, tolivealie.com)
| |
|
OSMANTIKOS:
Keep Fighting Oppressive Conditions: 7”
Malaysian punks who probably deserve to have their patches on crust punk buttflaps all over this country. Take note: fans of Havoc Records or Urban Guerilla Zine would probably eat this shit up. They’re lyrically utilizing some fairly spotty English—is it ethnocentric of me to even consider suggesting bands sing in their native language, maybe with English translations?—but they include some really heartfelt, sincere, DIY-lovin’ song explanations, which makes up for it. As far as the music, I was going to mention stuff like Discharge, Dischange, Disorder, etc. Or the relentlessness of that there kick drum, or the Swamp-Thing-getting-shivved-under-the-bed vocals, or maybe the really nice guitar work and pick slides on “Backway System.” I was going to. Instead, I’ll just mention that the three weird aliens/rats on the cover that apparently constitute likenesses of the band members are wearing Makiladoras, From Ashes Rise, and Extinction Of Mankind T-shirts, respectively. That should give you an idea.
–Keith Rosson (Bacon Towne)
| |
|
OTHER GHOSTS:
Manfire: CD
Indie rock/punk stuff with college kid pretentiousness just steaming off of it.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Radio Is Down)
| |
|
OTHERWISE:
Dark Adapted Eye: CD
I was so stoked when I got this because it looks all deathy and boss and shit with David Carson-esque typography and a photograph of some slimy tentacled thing on the cover (probably just an octopus, but it looked bad-ass). I figured I was getting the second coming of Chuck Schuldiner or something - I mean, the fucking album title is Dark Adapted Eye, right? It has to be some fucked up King Diamond / Mercyful Fate / Dimmu Borgir / Deicide shit, right? It sounds evil, it looks evil, it's gonna be fucking evil! I popped it in at work to ward off the blandness of the fluorescent lights and settled in and prepared to be rocked. The drumbeats started off a little slow, but I figured that even the most grindy album in existence can be deceptive - deception is evil, right? Deception is cool. And then the album proper started and I wanted to cry. All those hopes. All that build-up. For another shitty fucking whimpering sniveling emo band. As a result of this miserable experience, I have come to one unshakable conclusion: Firefly Records sucks rancid ass.
–Puckett (Firefly)
| |
|
OTHERWISE:
Dark Adapted Eye: CD
I was so stoked when I got this because it looks all deathy and boss and shit with David Carson-esque typography and a photograph of some slimy tentacled thing on the cover (probably just an octopus, but it looked bad-ass). I figured I was getting the second coming of Chuck Schuldiner or something – I mean, the fucking album title is Dark Adapted Eye, right? It has to be some fucked up King Diamond / Mercyful Fate / Dimmu Borgir / Deicide shit, right? It sounds evil, it looks evil, it’s gonna be fucking evil! I popped it in at work to ward off the blandness of the fluorescent lights and settled in and prepared to be rocked. The drumbeats started off a little slow, but I figured that even the most grindy album in existence can be deceptive – deception is evil, right? Deception is cool. And then the album proper started and I wanted to cry. All those hopes. All that build-up. For another shitty fucking whimpering sniveling emo band. As a result of this miserable experience, I have come to one unshakable conclusion: Firefly Records sucks rancid ass.
–Puckett (Firefly)
| |
|
OTTOWA:
SELF- TITLED: 12"EP
Ottowa were a Midwestern grind band in the mid-’90s, from the era of spazzing that lead up to the powerviolence explosion a couple of years later. These thirteen songs were originally on a split LP with Jihad, and have been remixed and re-released with new cover art as a 12” 45, minus the (inferior) Jihad side. I’ve had the original of this record since high school, and these short, furious songs made it onto a lot of mixtapes back then. I’ve been meaning to dust that record off, so this review gives me an awesome excuse to revisit an old favorite. I’m in my early thirties and am discovering that some of the music that I loved as a teenager has not held up well (Koff! Koff! Lifetime, ahem!). Luckily, Ottowa still shreds. The music is grindcore with two singers who don’t do the stereotypical dustbuster/nails on chalkboard back-and-forth. The songs are well written, too, swinging between blastbeats and half-speed parts to make dynamic hardcore blasts. You could file these guys alongside Infest, Crossed Out, Man Is The Bastard or The Locust before they got keyboards.
–CT Terry (Residue)
| |
|
OUR BAND SUCKS:
Pic’n’Save: CD EP
OBS was an East L.A. punk band formed in the late ‘80s. Funny, caustic, flamboyant, they would go on to release a record on Nemesis and get banned from a long list of clubs in the Southland. Their music was a mix of first wave English punk—aware of it or not, they channeled a ton of Cock Sparrer—and “pushing buttons” punk like Fear, the Angry Samoans, and the Meatmen. As seems to be an unfortunate pattern in East L.A. punk, someone in the band got mad, someone quit, someone’s feelings got hurt, drinking and drugs caught up, someone felt ripped off, and OBS came to a screeching halt in the late ‘90s. They were selling these CDEPs at their twenty-year anniversary show a couple months ago. The show was wonderfully dysfunctional and theatrical. Fat. Old. Sweaty. Out of breath. Perfect. These four songs fit right into their nineteen-song set without a hiccup. Glad to see ‘em back and here’s to hoping that it’s not just a time capsule, but the start of another run for these guys.
–Todd Taylor (Self-released)
| |
|
OUR LIFE STORY:
I’d Rather Change Than Stay the Same: CD
Kinda New Found Glory-ish pop punk. The songs are catchy enough and well-played, but this is seriously not my bag.
–Ryan Horky (Barrett, barrettrecords.net)
| |
|
OUR LOST CAUSE:
What Will Follow: CDEP-R
One more shitty Anti-Flag wanna-be band gets thrown into the machine. Complete with horrible, clichéd lyrics about apathy and ignorance, and typical cookie-cutter sound that could be at least fifty bands you can check out at your local Hot Topic listening station.
–Guest Contributor (Celebrity Pets)
| |
|
OUR OWN END:
Quit While You’re Still Behind: CD
I don’t know what to say about this other than that it’s super generic youth crew hardcore. Gang vocals and all of that. The best thing about this band is the unintentional, homoerotic band name and album title.
–Craven (myspace.com/ourownendmusic)
| |
|
OUR WAR:
If You’re Not Already: CD
Pretty decent straight edge crew-core with some lyrics that are pretty fuckin’ lame.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Deranged)
| |
|
OURSELF BESIDE ME:
Self-titled: CD
If you listen to Sonic Youth or do a lot of drugs, you will love this album.
–Corinne (Maybe Mars)
| |
|
OUT COLD:
Goodbye Cruel World: CD
I still stand by that the previous record: Will Attack If Provoked is an unheralded hardcore gem—one of the top ten of the last decade. Although far from a bad album, Goodbye Cruel World doesn’t quite measure up to the power, intensity, and hidden chord melodicism (where it seemed that the faster they belted it out, the catchier it got, which is still a mystery) of its predecessor, it’s still satisfying. Barked vocals, believably bleak lyrics, stark guitars, and conviction make it heads and shoulders above whatever screamo dog and pony show is being peddled to impressionable kids for the next five minutes. I just don’t feel the chills with this record and I wish I did.
–Todd Taylor (Acme)
| |
|
OUT COLD:
Planned Accidents: 7
These guys continue to defy the law of diminishing returns by mining in Negative Approach-land and still managing to come up with gold nuggets the size of fucking meteors. You get five tunes this time out, all of them dripping with vitriol and up to their eyeballs in sheer muscle. You know, one day Out Cold will take its place as one of the greatest hardcore bands this country’s ever produced. I highly recommend you pay rapt attention to them now while they’re still around rather than waiting until they’re long gone and you’re paying, like, $400 bucks for this bad boy and feeling like you got a good deal. Put simply, Out Cold fucking rules, tough guy.
–Jimmy Alvarado (Acme)
| |
|
OUT COLD:
Will Attack If Provoked: CD
I’ll make this as short as their CD. Out Cold have picked
up the torch that Negative Approach extinguished when they broke up. No small
feat. No short time in coming, they’ve apparently been around for years and
years. But, get this: they springboard beyond the shadow cast by NA. They’re
more brutal, heavier, faster and angrier than any other band that I’ve heard in
a long, long time. And behind the thrall are some fast-locking, oddly melodic
instrument interplays that separates them from pure thrash, blurcore, any
semblance of pop, and puts them in a very rare league indeed: straight-ahead,
non-reflexive hardcore. By the strength of this CD and a tape Jimmy Alvarado
made me, I’m in the process of ordering their entire back catalog. They lay
waste to all that metally, grab-yo’-nuts play acting, and all that “weren’t the
early ‘80s great?-core” that’s been replaying a little bit too close to history
as of late, and get down to brazen business. Fourteen songs, nineteen minutes
and five seconds long.
–Todd Taylor (Acme)
| |
|
OUT COLD / BILL BONDSMEN:
Split: 7"
Out Cold: I believe one of the most underrated punk bands out there. They should be as popular among the punks as Fucked Up. I think they are that good. I have yet heard a bad release from this band. I should see patches on every punk out there with their band name. Location might be a problem, since they live in Massachusetts. Another great set of songs from this veteran band: three songs of early-‘80s-inspired punk that can burn a hole in concrete. The music is tight and well crafted that it doesn’t sound generic. At the same time, you can feel the aggression in their output. Bill Bondsmen: A band that I haven’t heard before but I know they have some releases out there because I have seen the name around. If this is what the band sounds like, I want to hear more. The music is sort of unpredictable. They jerk and pull, go from tight and melodic to spastic on a dime. Slow, fast, medium, fast, slow—punk rock that is challenging, pushing the limits of the mediocre. Their two songs of organized chaos just boggled my mind. I just added this band to the shopping list.
–Donofthedead (Schizophrenic)
| |
|
OUT HUD/!!!:
LAB Remix Series: CD
Out Hud: Three remixes of the same song, none of which are particularly interesting. !!!: Remix of a song that probably wasn’t all that bad in its original state, but, at twelve minutes, is really tedious here.
–Jimmy Alvarado (www.goldstandardlabs.com)
| |
|
OUT OF TUNE:
Discontent Producers: CD
This was a bit of a surprise. Considering this band is from Finland, one would expect a wee bit more of a Discharge influence than there is, but they seem to have instead opted to up the metal quotient. Normally, that would be the kiss of death for these ears, but instead of hackneyed chugga-chugga riffs and forays into the cock rock borderlands, the metal manifests itself here in off-kilter rhythms and Marshalls that are more pummel than chugga. I’ll admit I was definitely put off by their mention that they’ve been compared to NOFX, and that’s certainly buried in there somewhere, but they manage to skirt falling into the dreaded cookie-cutter abyss and deliver something that I may not be crazy about, but I am respectfully intrigued by. Not bad, overall.
–Jimmy Alvarado (www.out-of-tune.net)
| |
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | 0-9| A| B| C| D| E| F| G| H| I| J| K| L| M | | N| O| P| Q| R| S| T| U| V| W| X| Y| Z| < Prev Section | Next Section > | |
|
|
|
|
| If you live in the Los Angeles area and want to help us out, let us know. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Get monthly notifications of new arrivals and distro and special offers for being part of the Razorcake army. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
